


sentimental boy is my nom de plume

by budapestagain (orphan_account)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Boys In Love, Destiel - Freeform, Fluff, M/M, Sabriel In Passing, School Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 06:28:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8133716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/budapestagain
Summary: dean was a jock. cas was a nerd. but both had a crush on each other. now, ten years later, they meet again and set out on an all-night adventure.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments and kudos!! And enjoy the fanfic!!

**_“love begins in a moment, grows over time and lasts an eternity”_ **

  “Dean!”

  Dean looked and jumped as he saw Charlie with her face pressed against the window.

  “You’re back, bitch!” Charlie opened the door and pulled him out. “You look exactly the same. Do you even age?” She hugged him and he smiled. He’d missed her. “Benny’s inside, talking to Jo, but I said I’d wait out here for you.”

  “I can guess why,” Dean muttered as he shut the car door.

  “So…how’s your romantic life?”

  “Of course.” Dean rolled his eyes. “No-one serious in my life, not since Anna and that was two years ago. You?”

  “I got a new girlfriend. She’s called Dorothy and she is _hot_.”

  They walked inside and Dean was pulled into a huge group hug. Benny clapped him on the back and pulled away but Jo clung to him like a limpet on the side of a ship. “I’ve missed you,” she muttered. “It’s been six years, Dean. _Six years_.”

  Dean smiled and hugged her then withdrew. “I need a drink,” he said. “It’s been a long drive and I had to drop Sam off at Jess’ parent’s house on the way.” He had acted exasperated by the whole situation but the reality was that he liked Jess and her family. She had been dating Sam since he went to college and had stuck by him through the whole of Stanford and when he became an unpaid intern at a major law firm. A few years later and they were engaged and halfway through planning a wedding.

  The venue that had been picked for the high school reunion was the same one that the prom had been hosted in. The prom wasn’t one of the greatest high school memories and neither was the after party. The after, _after_ party however was quite memorable. He had dropped Lisa off at her friend’s house – and he couldn’t even remember the friend’s name – and then picked up Charlie, Jo and Benny. They’d gone to the beach and had toasted to their futures. Charlie was heading for MIT; Jo going to a police academy; and Benny was taking a gap year, travelling around the world.

  They’d stayed there until dawn, staying awake by telling each other stories and reminiscing about their finest high school moments. Despite his relationship with Lisa, Dean felt more at peace without her than he did with.

  Speaking of Lisa…Dean glanced across the large room and caught her eye. She half-smiled at him, clearly recognising him even after a decade, and he smirked in reply, looking up and down. She was even prettier than in high school. Her youth had been replaced with an elegant maturity but he was sure that her old cheerleading acrobatic skills would not have faded. After all, didn’t she become a yoga instructor?

  His mind made up, Dean walked over to her, ignoring Jo rolling her eyes as she saw where he was headed.

  “Lisa, hey,” he said. “You look _incredible_.”

  “Thanks,” she replied, cheeks flushed red. “So do you. Do you still play football?”

  “No, no.” Dean ran a hand through his hair. “There’s not much opportunity for playing football nowadays. How about you? Still twirling those batons in time to the school band?”

  “I don’t think many people want to see a grown woman cheerleading,” Lisa said.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t mind.” Lisa chuckled and sipped at her white wine. There was a comfortable silence as Dean looked around. He recognised most people but there were a few partners of old classmates that he would no doubt be introduced to – pictures of kids he’d be shown and mortgage stories he’d be told about. “How are you? Are you married or dating anyone?”

  “No, it’s just, um, me and Ben.”

  “Right, right.” Dean nodded then snapped back to attention. “Ben?”

  “My son, Dean.”

  “Oh.”

  “He turned eight last week. He’s a really smart kid. He actually reminds me a lot of you. A little jock in the making,” Lisa said. “All charming smiles and one-liners that make me wonder if he isn’t yours. Which he isn’t, by the way. Obviously. I mean, we haven’t seen each other for ten years. Have you got any children?”

  “No, unless you count Crowley.” Dean snorted. At her blank look, he elaborated. “Sorry, he’s my best friend and roommate. I’m constantly getting calls to come pick him up from various bars because he’s flat-out drunk.”

  Lisa laughed. “Well, he sounds like someone I’d want to meet.”

  She was being forward, so forward, and Dean knew what she was insinuating. A relationship with old cheerleader girlfriend did seem quite easy and like something he’d want to partake in. He was about to reply with something equally as presumptuous and flirtatious but at that very moment in time, he looked across the room and he saw someone he hadn’t spoken to since prom.

  “Excuse me,” Dean said, biting his lip. “I’ll see you around?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  Dean left Lisa with a confused expression on her face and walked into the adjoining room to the bar. Cas was sat at the bar, nursing a beer and talking quietly to the girl next to him – Harriet or Hanna or something – but Dean couldn’t quite gather up the courage to talk to him.

 

_They were six years old, eyes bright and grins wide as they raced each other to the river. Dean was in the lead, Cas a close second by his side, and Sam and Gabriel were lagging behind, giggling about something. When they reached the river, Dean felt wired enough to leap right into the cold water, yelling out in excitement._

_“C’mon, Cas!” He yelped as Sam ran into the water. Gabriel was next but Cas hung behind, nervous. “I promise it’s okay,” Dean reassured him. Cas nodded – never one for many words – and waded into the river to swim by Dean’s side. “See? It’s okay, right?”_

_“Yes, Dean,” Cas said quietly._

_“Are you okay?”_

_“Of course.” Cas smiled at him. “I’ll race you to the tree.”_

_“You’re on!”_

  “Dean?”

  Dean realised with a start and flushed cheeks that he’d unconsciously been approaching Cas at the bar. Thankfully, the girl he had been talking to had gone.

  “C-Cas, hey.” Dean smiled. “Can I-” He gestured to the empty seat Hanna – it was definitely Hanna, he had remembered – had vacated.

  “Of course.” There was a silence in which Dean realised that Cas had grown no less gorgeous in the last ten years and Cas stared back, brow furrowed like he wanted to ask something important. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “I guess. Be warned though, I’m not _that_ cheap, Castiel.” He drew out the word with a deliberate teasing smile. “I’ll require at least a dinner before you can get me into bed.”

  It could have been a complete disaster, that little joke, but Cas seemed to appreciate it. He smiled and the sides of his eyes crinkled up, adorably. “I never thought otherwise,” he quipped and ordered a beer.

  Dean grabbed the bottle that was handed to him and held it up. “To re-uniting with especially attractive old classmates?” Cas smiled again and they both drunk. Dean was grateful for the brief respite to think of something else to say. “I haven’t spoken to you for years, Cas.”

  “We never really spoke anyway,” Cas replied.

 

_It was a warm day, normal in Texas summer, but this heat was sweltering. Dean had taken his shirt off a long time ago, grinning at the giggling girls who passed him as he fixed up his Impala. Sam was sat on a deckchair beside him, reading and looking like a nerd but not caring._

_“Sammy, you should pay attention,” Dean said but Sam ignored him. “I’m never letting you drive this, bitch, if you don’t help,” he added. That gave Sam the incentive to leap up and make himself helpful. Dean was just about to explain the details of what he was doing and why when he heard a door open._

_“Cassie, I don’t get why you don’t ask Hanna out,” a smooth British voice said_

_Dean glanced up, frowning then realised that he knew the voice’s owner. Cas and Gabriel’s cousin, who came to visit every so often. Sure enough, the two brothers were with the British cousin. Gabriel looked delighted with the conversation topic but Cas looked frustrated._

_“I’m just not interested in her,” Cas said._

_“Told you, Balthy,” Gabriel said. “He doesn’t like-” He looked up and saw Dean and Sam. He winked at Sam and smiled at Dean, raising a hand in greeting. Cas saw them too and he smiled nervously at Dean then hurried off to the flashy red car parked up on the street. Balthazar looked from Dean to Cas and then back again, eyes widening._

_Dean hastily continued to show Sam how to fix the engine but he definitely heard Balthazar’s loud, “oh,” and Gabriel shush him before saying, “Cas likes boys, Balthazar, okay? But don’t tell anyone. Promise.” Balthazar had promised and Dean had gone inside to fetch himself and Sam a cold drink, cheeks flushed and smiling like an idiot._

 

  “I used to like you, you know,” Dean admitted then flushed red. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s, uh, that’s-” Cas looked at his beer then back up again, eyes wide with amusement. “Do you mean, like, like _like like_?” He asked. Dean laughed and after a second, Cas joined in, shaking his head in exasperation as he attempted to get his point across. “Did you have a crush on me?”

  “You could call it that,” Dean said. The truth was that he had felt something for Cas, all those years ago, that he hadn’t felt since. He wasn’t about to tell him that though. He’d had enough confessions for a first drink with an old not-friend.

  “I used to have a crush on you too.”

  “Are you being serious?” Dean grinned, more out of shock than anything else but Cas looked embarrassed. “God, sorry, I sounded like a dick. I just…I don’t get why you’d…”

  “Dean, you were the most popular and attractive boy in school. Everyone knew you.” Cas shrugged. “I think everyone felt something for you – attraction or jealousy. I knew this sounds stupid but I felt like I knew you, more than the jocks or the cheerleaders knew you. More than Lisa knew you. We were neighbours. I saw how you were with Sam and I remembered all the times we’d play together when we were kids. It all just sort of culminated into a teenage crush.”

  Dean smiled slightly.

  “Why did you like me?” Cas asked.

  “You had really blue eyes. They looked like they’d been created out of the sky and the ocean. When the ocean’s really blue, you know? And when the sky’s a really bright blue, when it’s really sunny? They looked like that. And you smiled a lot, at me, I mean. You smiled and, combined with your eyes, you looked like a really sunny sky.” Dean was aware that he was rambling and he’d regret it later but Cas was looking at him, _really_ looking at him, and it was nice. “You laughed a lot, too. Not at the normal things, but, I remember old neighbourly parties and Gabriel would tell bad jokes which only Sam found funny but then he’d whisper something in your ear and you’d really laugh. I never knew what he whispered but you made me laugh because you looked really happy.”

  He paused, wondering if he’d gone overboard, if it was weird that he still remembered.

  “I loved your freckles.”

  “I still have them.”

  “Then I still love them.” Cas looked so innocent at that moment – so open and vulnerable – as he stared at Dean. The L-word hung in the air between them. _I still love them_. He was so fucking perfect. So beautiful, too. He still had blue eyes. They were as vibrant as they used to be, even if he looked older. Youth hadn’t been replaced with a haggard expression from bad experiences, like some of their classmates. Youth had been replaced with an archaic wisdom, filling the laughter lines on his face and adding a depth to him that Dean had never remembered being there.

  Ten years was a long time. Things had probably happened to Cas, as things had happened to Dean. But the thing that hadn’t changed was that Dean could feel his heart pounding, the old rhythm he hadn’t felt in a long time. Maybe, he thought, he had a little crush on Cas, again. Or maybe it had never gone.

 

_Cas hadn’t wanted to attend the Winchester’s barbeque but he was glad he was there, now. He sat with Gabriel and Sam, only half-listening to Gabriel’s stupid story about The Time He Accidentally Dated a Prostitute. All of Gabriel’s stories were like that – exciting and all one hundred percent true, apart from a few details. The prostitute, Cas knew, was actually a man called Isaac, not a woman called Katherine, and Chuck, their father, didn’t know the prostitute from work, he knew Isaac from the homosexual conversion group in town Chuck had gotten rid of, with a series of letters about health codes._

_The rest of his attention was focused on Dean, who was flipping burgers and smiling at Bobby. Everyone knew Bobby Singer – it was a small town – but he was special to the Winchester’s, everyone knew that too._

_Dean had his sleeves rolled up, apron on over the flannel, and his eyes were lit up. Every so often, an insect would fly past and he’d recoil, wrinkling his nose and staying still until it had passed. It was ridiculous but it made Dean all the more endearing._

 

“Bee!” Dean yelped and leapt back as the bee flew past them. He saw Cas smile, out of the corner of his eye, and went red. “Sorry. Just insects. There was a thing when I was younger. A house full of them. Actually, you were there. Remember? We went to the abandoned house near that creepy scarecrow where that woman drowned her kids? And then we went into the attic because your crappy brother thought it’d be funny. Then all those bugs came flying out and attacked us.” Dean shivered with distaste.

  “I remember,” Cas said. “I miss that.” At Dean’s frown, he explained. “Not being almost killed by bugs but being together when we were children. We were so carefree.”

  “Before high school,” Dean added, a little sourly looking at his classmates filing out of the building. Cas nodded in agreement then they just stood there, next to Dean’s car. Dean shoved his hands in his pockets to make sure that he didn’t pull Cas into a hug. “I miss it too. We could still hang out.”

  “You live in New York.” And Cas could definitely see Dean prowling around the streets of the city, wearing his old leather jacket and pursuing the many people who would inevitably fall in love with his sinful green eyes. “And I live in Chicago.”

  “We could meet halfway,” Dean suggested. “You bring the pizza and I’ll bring the pie.”

  “We’ll do that.”

  Dean could hear people saying their goodbyes but he was sure that none of them were feeling the ragged grief tearing at his heart. He remembered graduation and watching Cas with his friends. Their eyes had met and Dean had held up a hand in acknowledgement. Cas had smiled at him but there was something behind that smile. Then he’d watched as Cas drove away, with Hanna and a few others, to wherever they were having their post-graduation party.

  Much to Lisa’s irritation, he had passed on her party and decided to stay home, playing video games with Charlie and Sam. Gabriel had come over for an hour or two, mostly just to flirt with Sam (who had a massive crush on him).

  “I suppose I should get home,” Cas said.

  “Oh, right, yeah.”

  “What are you-”

  “Home, I guess. Or maybe I’ll see what the others are doing.” Dean spotted Benny and Jo getting in the same car, both looking a little drunk, and grinned. “Probably home.”

  “Okay. Well, I’ll see you then.”

  “See you around, Cas.”

  Dean watched Cas walk away and found himself blinking away tears. _Tears_. Could he be any more ridiculous? This wasn’t the last time he’d be seeing Cas. He could even call him tomorrow and see what he was up to. Unless he had to go back to Chicago straight away.

  He knew what Crowley would say – “ _wasted opportunity, Squirrel, honestly, he’s cute and you like him, so go, you idiot_ ” – and how frustrated Sam would be – _“you fancied him, Dean, I know you did, God, look if I had the chance to go out with Gabriel, if I wasn’t with Jess, I would take it”._

  Before he could stop himself, Dean ran forward and grabbed Cas’ shoulder before he could unlock his car.

  “Dean, what are you doing?”

  Dean looked around; searching for the words, then looked back at Cas, unable to help his eyes travelling down to his lips. “Look, I’ve liked, I’ve really liked talking to you tonight and we talked all night and that’s unusual for me. I think we could be really good friends. Do you want to grab something to eat?”

 

  They’d grabbed some burgers to take-out from the diner that had been there ten years ago. It was relatively unchanged and Dean smiled at the familiarity. He had missed this town, however much he denied it. He missed the comfort of having his friends and going home to his parents and little brother with no troubles and no bills to pay and nothing to care about except homework and Lisa and football try-outs.

  They were walking so close that they kept brushing against each other. Cas linked arms with Dean when they crossed the road. “Safety,” he explained at Dean’s raised eyebrow. Not that he was complaining. The contact made his stomach swirl, almost putting him off his burger.

  “Do you want to know something, Dean?” Cas asked in the softest voice possible. Dean glanced at him as Cas stopped in the middle of the street. There weren’t many people out at this time but he still felt stupidly self-conscious of being out and about with a man, looking they were on a date. He had never come out to his parents, despite being openly bisexual with his friends and Sam and Jess and Cas knew now.

  “What, Cas?” He played along.

  “I used to think that I was in love with you.”

  Nothing compared to this. Not the delicious burger or the beautiful stars shining above them or the feeling he got when he drove into New York City in his Impala, free at last from the family business and the responsibilities placed upon him.

  He smiled and then he threw his half-eaten burger in the trash just so that he could hold Cas’ hand and they kept walking and he _kept smiling_. He couldn’t help it. He knew he looked like an idiot but it was the automatic reaction to finding out that someone used to be in love with you.

  “Dean?” Cas said nervously and he realised that he hadn’t replied.

  “No-one’s ever said that to me before,” Dean said and Cas laughed, obviously relieved that the silence had just been shock and delirium. Even he and Lisa had only reached the ‘I love you’ stage and _I’m in love with you_ was so much more. It could only be beaten by _I want to spend the rest of my life and beyond with you_.

  “Okay,” Cas said with a  nod. “I’m glad that I’m the first, even if it was in the past tense.”

  “Yeah. I’m glad too.” Dean grinned, trying to will away the happiness because he felt like he was drunk and he would probably do something he shouldn’t. “How about,” he began, “we have an adventure?”

 

 

  Dean handed Cas the glass. “Here’s your fruit cocktail, sir,” Dean said and Cas grinned up at him.

  “Thank you, bartender.”

  They were in Cas’ old home, next door to Dean’s, since his parents were away on holiday. The fridge was still plastered in old school reports and photos of their kids – Michael, Gabriel, Cas and Samandriel, the youngest.

  “Come on,” Cas said. “I’ll show you my bedroom.”

  “Eighteen year old Dean would be melting right about now.” Dean followed Cas upstairs. “Nice view,” he said without thinking but Cas laughed.

  Sitting on Cas’ bed, where teenage Cas slept and kissed people and-Dean gulped at where his thoughts were taking him. He sipped at his own cocktail and ignored Cas’ stare. Cas stared a lot. _A lot_. He was the king of eye contact.

  “So…” Dean wasn’t sure what to talk about now. They hadn’t had this problem for the past few hours but now their topics had all dried up. No, it wasn’t that they had run out of things to talk about. It was that Dean felt like he physically couldn’t. His throat was all dry and the tension in the room was rising.

  Being in an attractive person’s bedroom, on their bed, almost always led to making out, in Dean’s experience. But maybe that was just him. Maybe Cas felt none of the electric attraction between them.

  “I have a tattoo,” Cas said suddenly. Dean stared at him. _Cas. A tattoo_. The teenage version of Dean was doing cartwheels in his mind.

  “W-where?”

  “On my back.”

 “Can I see it?” _Terrible question, Dean_. “If that’s not too intrusive.” He waited with bated breath but Cas smiled and nodded. They held each other’s gaze for a few seconds before Cas turned away, slowly unbuttoning his shirt and then taking it off. Dean watched Cas’ hands, putting off the moment where he would be able to gaze at Cas’ bare skin because it would probably be too much to handle, but when they stilled, he knew that he had no other distractions now.

  He glanced then stared. “I...oh… _wow_ , Cas.” Dean shuffled forward on the bed and let his fingers trace the shape of the beautiful angelic wings on Cas’ back. At Dean’s touch, Cas moved slightly and his back muscles rippled, making the wings seem so _real_. Like Cas would take off at any moment and fly into the night. Dean liked that – Cas escaping the town they’d both ran away from ten years previously.

  “Do you like them?”

  “They’re beautiful.”

  “Thanks.” Cas looked at Dean over his shoulder, cheeks flushed and lips pursed slightly.

  If Dean was eighteen again, young and wild and full of dreams, he would have maybe kissed Cas at that moment, running his hands through dark hair and not letting go until he absolutely had to. He would have thought _to hell with the consequences_ because it would have been Cas. And Cas was _Cas_.

  “Cas?”

  “Yes?”

  Dean took a deep breath. He stopped tracing the pattern of the feathers on the wings and instead placed a hand on Cas’ upper arm, curling his fingers around the muscle with a surprising gentleness. “You’re so hot,” he whispered and Cas started to laugh and laugh.

 

  “I’m being really fucking crazy,” Dean said. He was sat down, wanting to sink into the plush leather of the reclining chair, with a heavily tattooed man holding a needle over his wrist and Cas sat on the other side of him, smiling.

  “You don’t have to get a tattoo, Dean.”

  “I do.”

  They weren’t drunk but the cocktails had made them a bit light-headed. The tattoo artist frowned at him. “Are you sure? This isn’t a tattoo you’ll regret?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “ _S.W_?” The man said. He glanced at Cas. “Is this S.W? Because initials of your boyfriends are never a good idea, just in case you break up.”

  “Oh, no, we’re not-” Dean struggled to say the word. “He’s not my, you know. He’s a friend. And they’re my little brother’s initials. Sam Winchester.”

  “Oh,” the artist said. He seemed content with Dean’s answer because he started to draw the two letters. Dean suppressed a squeak of surprised pain but he did look, eyes wide, at Cas.

  “How did you suffer through the pain of yours?” He asked.

  “Gabriel came along. He told me some jokes. I’ve always had a high pain threshold though. Do you want me to hold your hand for moral support?”

  “Please.”

  Cas held his hand. “The S has been done,” he informed Dean. “One more letter left.” Dean would have responded but he didn’t trust himself to not say something idiotic. “Will Sam approve of this?”

  “Don’t care,” he muttered through lips pressed tightly together. “Bitch will have to accept it.”

  “I think it’s sweet. You and him have always been close.”

  “So have you and Gabriel.”

  “I suppose. We talk every week on Skype but I haven’t seen him in person for a few months. He’s in Thailand? Or Japan? I can never keep track of his adventures.”

  “Remember when we were kids.” Dean winced as the needle pierced his skin for the beginning of the W. “And we planned out an adventure.”

  “We did that a lot, Dean. Before-”

  _Before_. Before they drifted apart for some unknown reason. Maybe it was because kids realised how good they had it so they clung onto each other. When they’d become teenagers, Dean had gone down one path – sports and girls and parties – and Cas another. Dean knew, now, that he should have held onto Cas. Cas was the best thing he’d ever had.

  “No, it was a real adventure. Not space or cowboys or monster hunting. We planned that we’d travel the world. We must have been – _ow_ – seven or something-”

  “Almost finished,” the tattoo artist said.

  “And your dad – Chuck was awesome, by the way – gave us his atlas and we spent hours poring over pictures of oceans and cities and we made a list of all the places we’d go.”

  “You wanted to go to Vegas so bad.”

  “I did.”

  “Finished.”

  “Sammy’s 21st birthday party. Me, my brother, Charlie and a weekend of fun.”

  “Charlie went to Sam’s weekend in Vegas?”

  “Of course she went. She organised most of it.”

  Dean sat up and looked at the small black letters on his wrist. Maybe one day he’d come back and have _C.N_ to join them. Even if this night turned out to be nothing and he never saw Cas again, he could get that tattoo. The initials of the boy who was like family to him when he was a kid. Like a brother.

 

 

    Dean cursed quietly as he tripped over one of his mother’s ridiculous door-stoppers and banged his hip on the kitchen table. That’d be a huge purple bruise in the morning. Thankfully, though, his parents didn’t wake up. It wasn’t like he was breaking and entering – he had a key – but he doubted that they’d be appreciative of him sneaking in at three in the morning just to retrieve his old diary.

  He grabbed it from the shelf in the spare bedroom (on the ground floor, thank God) and quickly went back outside. Cas was sat on the garden wall at the front, swinging his legs and looking impossibly gorgeous in the moonlight. Dean wasn’t sure where this insane adventure was taking them but he hoped it didn’t end soon. Too much adrenaline and endorphins. They’d keep him from sleeping and he’d spend his sleepless night as he did in high school – thinking about Cas.

  “Got it!” He exclaimed in a low whisper.

  Cas smiled happily at him and Dean felt like he could live off that smile.

 

  _August 24 th _

_Spoke to Dean today. He crashed into me after his football game and apologised and helped me pick up my things. He’s really nice. I don’t know why Balthazar speaks so disparagingly of him. He always says that he knows guys like him. Guys who won’t come out but will linger around the back of seedy cinemas for a quick blowjob…I don’t think Dean is like that. But all I know is the Dean from my childhood. The Dean who carried Sam for miles when he broke his ankle. The Dean who cuddled me when I had nightmares. Maybe he’s not that Dean anymore. Maybe I just want him to be._

  Cas blushed as Dean stared at him, eyes wide. They were on Cas’ bed again and sitting closer than ever.

**_August 24 th _ **

**_Accidentally crashed into Cas today. It was embarrassing but I was on a high after winning the game so I couldn’t stop smiling. I smile a lot around him anyway. Cas seemed, I don’t know, distant? Maybe? After I kissed Lisa and I felt like shit because I am lying to her. I don’t even love her, like I told her I did. I am a shit boyfriend. I’m a terrible person. But Cas has gorgeous eyes. And smile. And he said “well done” for winning the game and that made me happier than Lisa giving me a BLOWJOB did. Jesus, I’m really in love with him._ **

  It was Dean’s turn to blush and duck his head. Cas’ fingers were resting on the last sentence and he was looking at it like he had to translate it from a different language. “You never-” Dean bit his lip in worry but Cas was suddenly pulling him closer, licking his lips tantalisingly. “You never told me that you were in love with me too.”

  _That I am in love with you. Present tense._ Did something like that ever go away? Would Dean meet up with Cas in thirty years and have his heart broken again?

  “I didn’t want to tell you. I thought that you’d freak out or…”

  “I told you that I was in love with you.” There was something in Cas’ voice that made Dean think that Cas meant present tense, too. “Why were we so stupid, Dean? Why did we wait ten years to tell each other how we felt?”

  “We were just kids.” Dean shrugged it off. “Kids don’t realise how good things like that are. Maybe we would have messed it up.”

  “I knew how good you were.” Cas groaned. “I fucking knew it. We would have stayed together, Dean. I just know we would have. I kept telling myself that I couldn’t give up my dreams for a boy. For the boy next door but you weren’t just the boy next door. You were Dean Winchester and I let you slip through my fingers and-”

  “Hey, hey.” Dean stroked Cas’ cheek. “I’m here now. That’s good enough, right? I’m here now and we’ve got each other now. You’ve got me.”

  Cas stared at him and Dean knew why. He had basically just announced that he was in love with Cas, still. Shit.

  Cas kissed him. It was surprising and it hurt Dean more than anything he’d ever felt before. His vision blurred and he realised that he was crying as he kissed back. Why was he crying? He never cried. He hadn’t cried for years. Sobs wracked his body and Cas pulled away.

  “Are you okay? I’m sorry. I-”

  “I never stopped,” Dean said and Cas didn’t need context to know what he meant. Cas wiped away his tears and then pressed their lips together again. This time it was softer but it was stronger, somehow. Dean stopped crying. Instead, he pushed Cas back on the bed and straddled him. Cas smirked and flipped them round so that Dean was underneath him, breathless. Dean rested his hands where he knew Cas’ tattoo was and Cas planted a kiss on Dean’s nose.

  “I don’t want to lose you again.”

  “You won’t. I promise. You’ve got me,” Dean repeated, “for the rest our lives.”

 

 

_He’d won Prom King. He’d been crowned. He’d danced with Lisa. He’d laughed at the jokes. Then he’d declined Benny’s offer of a drink and he’d placed the crown on Charlie’s head and he’d gone outside, leaning against the wall and taking deep breaths._

_“Congratulations.”_

_Dean looked up and his heart leapt when he saw Cas smiling up at him._

_“On winning, I mean,” Cas added. “Congratulations on winning.”_

_“Yeah, right.” Dean forced a smile. “I’m the King.”_

_“Like Elvis.”_

_Dean grinned. “Elvis…man, I used to love Elvis. Remember the records we used to put on? Your dad’s record player? We thought that it was from the Dark Ages but we liked it.”_

_“Yeah, I remember.”_

_Dean noticed the camera hanging around Cas’ neck and motioned to it. “Have you got any good shots?”_

_“A few of you,” Cas replied then blushed. “I, um…do you want to see?”_

_Dean took the offered camera and flicked through the photos. One of him and Lisa, smiling and dancing in the middle of the dance floor. She looked beautiful but he didn’t feel anything. It was like someone had stolen Dean’s heart. He still loved Sam and Charlie and Benny and Jo but he couldn’t feel a smidgeon of romantic love towards Lisa, no matter what she did or what he said or how many times they slow-danced. He didn’t want slow-dancing. It was so cliché._

_He wanted something more than romantic. He wanted something powerful._

_“Do you like it?”_

_“It’s amazing, Cas.”_

_“I think it’s shit.” Dean looked at him, surprised. “I mean, the actual photo would probably pass as professional but it has no heart. It’s not art.”_

_Dean held up the camera and used his meagre knowledge of photography to find the button that took a photo. He snapped a picture of Cas._

_“What-”_

_“You can’t stay behind the camera all the time,” Dean said. He looked at the photo and saw what Cas meant about photography having to have heart. That photo had heart. It had Dean’s, wrapped up in Cas’ confused frown and bright eyes. “There.” He handed the camera back to Cas. “Art,” he said then he went back inside._

  It’s five in the morning and Dean isn’t tired at all anymore. They had napped for an hour, wrapped up in each other, their heart beats one steady rhythm.

  Cas is driving, humming along to the song on the radio – some pop song Dean had heard Crowley sing at karaoke a few times. The photo of Cas – the one from prom, the one Cas had e-mailed to Dean a few days after that night, the one Dean had kept in his locked ‘secrets box’ since then – was being held in Dean’s hand as he gazed down at it, unable to believe his luck.

  “Keep it,” Cas said suddenly. “The photo of me. Keep it with you, please.”

  “Of course,” Dean said. “I will.”

 

 

  The beach was beautiful at sunrise.

  Cas leaned into Dean, hiding his face in the crook of Dean’s neck, drawing into the sand. “I think I’m still in love with you,” he whispered and Dean stiffened.

  Neither of them had said it. They had said _I was in love with you_ and _for the rest of our lives_ but they hadn’t admitted the fact that they hadn’t fallen out of love with each other since they were eighteen years old.

  Dean lifted Cas’ face up so he could meet his gaze and smiled. “Are you being serious?”

  “I’m being serious, Dean.”

  “God, Cas, I mean, I feel the same way. I’ve been in love with you since before I knew what love was.”

  He remembered Sam asking him if it was okay to like boys when Dean was ten and Sam was six and Dean had said _yes, yes, it’s fine, but some people don’t think it is, Sammy, but it’s fine, I love you, it’s okay_. And Sam had asked him again when he was fourteen and Dean was eighteen and they were helping their mom garden and Dean had looked at the fence separating them from Cas’ house and he’d said _I love you, Sammy, and it’s okay_. Maybe Sam had then glanced at the house, thinking of Gabriel, but Dean hadn’t noticed because he was too busy thinking of Gabriel’s brother.

  “What’s going to happen?” Dean asked.

  “Us.” Cas smiled and kissed him. “We’ll happen.”

  “But…the distance. Can we withstand that? I’m happy in New York. I love Crowley, he’s my best friend. I couldn’t just up and leave him.”

  “Dean, stop.” Dean pressed his lips together so he wouldn’t say anything else. “Yesterday morning, I got a call from my work and they offered me a promotion. I didn’t know whether to take it but now I’m sure.”

  “Where?”

  “New York,” Cas said and he smiled. “Dean, I’m moving to New York.”


End file.
